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America’s largest Christian charity is funnelling millions of dollars to hate groups.

In a story being picked up by national news sources and originally broken by Sludge, the USA’s largest Christian charity (and 8th largest public charity overall) is giving millions to anti-LGBTQ and anti-Muslim hate groups.

Over the past three years, the National Christian Foundation has passed along $56 million to groups like ACT for America, Alliance Defending Freedom, American Freedom Law Center, the Family Research Council, and the David Horowitz Freedom Center School for Political Warfare. Each is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Let me lay out a bit about why each of these organization suck:

ACT for America (whose founder Bridgette Gabriel believes, “America has been infiltrated on all levels by radicals who wish to harm America. They have infiltrated us at the CIA, at the FBI, at the Pentagon, at the State Department. They’re being radicalized in radical mosques, in our cities and communities within the United States.” Besides promoting Islamophobic lies, they also ran an online database called “Thin Blue Line” that gave law enforcement the info of prominent Muslim leaders that they should keep an eye on, usually for no other reason other than them being prominent Muslims in America.

Alliance Defending Freedom has worked to criminalize homosexuality and supported the rights of foreign nations to sterilize trans folx.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Freedom Law Center has proposed outlawing Islam and deporting Muslims and other “non-Western, non-Christian” people to protect the U.S.’s “national character.”

The David Horowitz Freedom Center is particularly tragic. Horowitz began as a leftist in the 60s who supported civil rights. Since then, he has become a leading force in anti-immigration, Islamophobic, and anti-black movements.

Unfortunately, it isn’t just right-wing charities that are directing funds to these hate groups. Sludge reports that Goldman Sachs, Fidelity Charitable, Schwab, Vanguard and other donor-advised funds have directed funds to these groups as well.

Islamophobia is Big Business

Millions in tax-deductable donations are going to benefit hate groups in our country. And, as I argued in an earlier article, millions more are being invested (with a healthy return on investment) through Christian financial service organizations like Thrivent Financial. As of early 2018, Thrivent had $297 million invested in the military industrial complex.

Christians are donating money to attack Muslims at home and are investing money in attacking Muslims abroad.

In light of recent attacks in New Zealand, and the rise of far right-wing nationalism (with it’s accompanying xenophobia, Islamophobia, and misogyny), we need to come to terms with the source of such hate. A toxic form of Christianity, which flourishes out in open as a subset of evangelical culture, has provided fertile soul for this demonic fruit. And we have no reason to believe the fruit is going to shrivel up anytime soon.

It’s Time to Divest and Disrupt

One huge reason that our society skews right-wing (even our major “left” party is, generally speaking, center-right) is that conservatives have more money, and they spend it to influence society. They invest in war. They donate to hate groups. They fund campaigns.

If our response is to out-spend them, then we’re fooling ourselves. War and hate are profitable. And the wealthy class is heavily invested in the status quo.

As long as white folks have more assets than people of color, anti-racist movements will be at a disadvantage. As long as oppressors are richer, the oppressed will be at a disadvantage. As long as war is big business, Islamophobia and xenophobia will plague us.

Nevertheless, whatever resources people of good conscience have at their disposal needs to be taken out of any and every organization that spreads violence and hate. For suggestions on how to put your money somewhere better, check out the tips on ThriventDivest.com.

But divesting isn’t enough. We need a massive movement of distruptors. As Bayard Rustin wrote: “We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers. Our power is in our ability to make things unworkable. The only weapon we have is our bodies. And we need to tuck them in places so wheels don’t turn.”

Just as Black Lives Matter employed a politics of disruption to raise the national alarm about racist policing. Just as the water protectors at Standing Rock have created a human barrier against pipeline construction. So too, should we disrupt and confound any and every congregation that fuels militarism, economic exploitation, sexism, racism, Islamophobia, or transphobia.

However, we need to go beyond disrupting churches. Just as Jesus disrupted the moneylenders in the Temple (and occupied the temple for a week), we need to “tuck” our bodies into institutions that fund hate. We need to make it so “wheels don’t turn.”

It’s time for divine disobedience and sacred subversion. We need to take an axe to the root. As Christians, we need to get our house in order. Right now our “brothers and sisters” are fomenting hate around the world. Hate is big business in America. We need to help people divest. And disrupt those who refuse.

A Call to Disruption

The National Christian Foundation is headquartered in Atlanta, but has offices all over the country (www.ncfgiving.com/locations). It is time to disrupt their work.

To start, I need to assess how much on-the-ground capacity there is for something like this. If you’re located in (or near) one of the cities listed below, and have the capacity to help, please contact me.

Please don’t contact me if you’re just interested in showing up or simply think it is a good idea. DO contact me, however, if you feel like you’ve got the mojo and capacity to help organize a local action in your city and are willing to coordinate (via email and Skype) with an organizing team to help with messaging, coordinating, outreach, etc.

One pathology of political liberalism is to equate calmness with maturity and anger with immaturity. Many who have been enculturated as middle class liberals (particularly the white ones) may shed tears for injustice, but don’t get too riled up about injustice. And so, when they come into contact with an angry poor person, or angry person of color, it is easy for them to think: “Well, I certainly care about injustice, but I don’t get worked up about it…these folks are behaving like children!”

This tendency gets spiritualized as such folks go to nice liberal churches where the homilist never raises their voice as they calmly read their written reflections. And when they prioritize silent spiritual practices and read (or perhaps misread) authors like Richard Rohr or other writers that encourage a sort of anti-dualism. They conclude that calling anything “evil” is just some sort of immature form of spirituality.

At a certain point, out of a paternal or maternal compassion, they go forth to help the angry oppressed mature spiritually, as they did. They quote MLK and Gandhi and Jesus (or at least the nicer bits) to remind everyone of the better angels in our nature. They lift up nonviolence as a virtue whenever voices cry too loudly for justice.

Deep down inside, they know that if we can come together in civility and vulnerability, we can figure this out. But first these angry folks have to let go in the spirit of reconciliation.

This reminds me of an old tweet from Zellie Imani reminding us that calls for nonviolence from the privileged to the oppressed are fraught:

For the oppressor, "peace" isn't the absence of violence. For the oppressor, "peace" is the absence of response to their violence.

Context matters. Pacifism and nonviolence ONLY make sense when they are developed among folks who would otherwise see violence as the reasonable course of action. A prescriptive nonviolence that comes from comfortable oppressors is worse than worthless. It usually reinforces the status quo.

A spirituality centered on silence and detachment can be powerful. But, again, these practices only really make sense within the context of solidarity. When we are pathologically disengaged or prone to political apathy, contemplative practice becomes problematic. If we habitually avoid the oppressed and become, therefore, inattentive to those who suffer, our practices will become a spritualized buffer.

Please understand. I’m not rejecting nonviolence and contemplation. I am a mystic, a contemplative, and a pacifist. In my life and work, I advocate a contemplative posture in the quest for spiritual and political liberation.

Nevertheless, many of us learn contemplation and nonviolence in a way that wittingly enshrines a sort of disengaged white middle class consciousness.

Unfortunately, so many advocates of contemplation and nonviolence fail to recognize this problem. Instead, they seem to operate from the assumption that, merely by doing contemplation, people will simply wake from their slumber to the pulsating world of reality and become aware of the nature of oppression.

But this is impossible without real compassionate solidarity with those who suffer. The key words here are “compassionate” which (at root) means to “suffer with” and “solidarity” which basically means “to be bound together.”

Without suffering with the oppressed, and being bound together in the struggle for liberation, contemplative spirituality and nonviolent politics are dead.

What is Radical Discipleship? This used to be a fairly simple question to me. Now? Not so much.

Fifteen years ago, with the confidence of a late 20’s white seminarian, I “planted” a church whose only real mission was to take Jesus seriously. Soon, that new church experiment mutated into a full on intentional community, a sort of hybrid between a catholic worker house and a hippy Mennonite Church. We called ourselves the Mennonite Worker.

At our most active, we were two dozen active Workers spread out between three houses of hospitality with up to a dozen guests at a time. Fueled by stacked boxes of dumpstered foodstuffs, we kept a nightly pace of community meals. Driven by a vision of Jubilee, we recklessly offered hospitality beyond our mental and emotional capacity. Inspired by prophetic legends, we marched and protested and disobeyed. Our weekly worship services were filled with laughter and hope, anxiety and discouragement, and above all, longing for a better world.

During our busiest years, I was helping throw radical conferences, editing a radical webzine, producing a radical podcast, and traveling the country talking about radical Jesus. Sometime in there my wife and I had a son and I became frustrated how it slowed me down.

I was driven. To me, being a radical disciple meant trying my hardest to be like Jesus, or at the very least I’d settle for John the Baptist.

It was John who said:

“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Matthew 3:7b-10)

Being a “radical” disciple meant confronting and opposing Empire. It was an inner scream against injustice. It meant uprooting oppression. And being a radical “disciple” meant doing that first bit like Jesus.

Predictably, I was on the fast track to breakdown. And it didn’t come all-at-once. It was a four year process of crisis and exhaustion from which I’m still recovering.

You see, I kinda had it wrong. I thought “radical discipleship” was a performative thing. Something you strive for. Something external to me to which I must conform. It was work, exhausting work, and I assumed that if I pushed hard enough, it would all click.

Somewhere in the early days of burnout, when my soul knew it was starving, I read these words from Simone Weil: “Whoever is uprooted himself uproots others. Whoever is rooted himself doesn’t uproot others.” (from the The Need for Roots)

I knew what I was experiencing was a deep feeling of uprootedness. I didn’t feel firmly planted. I was spiritually malnourished. I was trying to live up to a radical blueprint, one that had been reinforced by hundreds of stories about radical heroes. I was trying to conform to an image outside of myself.

And I was falling short. I wanted to embrace simplicity like Saint Francis. Welcome the unhoused like Dorothy Day. Protest like a Berrigan. Organize like Dr. King. And, in all things, love like Jesus.

But you can’t make yourself into these things. Instead, I found myself increasingly resenting the affluent, hiding in my room from house-guests, becoming cynical about activism, and unable to even really love myself.

I wish I knew as a late 20s seminarian, what I know now: to be a radical disciple is to be rooted like Jesus, rooted IN Jesus.

A radical discipleship that is merely performative, one that is animated only by a desire to do everything right and oppose everything wrong is an uprooted discipleship. Radical discipleship needs deep roots. It must be animated by the Spirit, who give us life.

Please understand. I’m not saying (as so many do) that the struggle for justice is secondary to our personal spirituality. Nor am I saying that attending to our spiritual life, by some divine magic, will automatically transform us into radical practitioners.

No, what I am saying is that our radical discipleship must be transformative, not just performative.

Radical discipleship is about discernment, not following a script.

Radical disciples aren’t simply trying to be LIKE Jesus. Rather we try to do the work along with Jesus.

Radical discipleship flows out of love of God, the land, and people (including ourselves) for these are where we put down roots.

Note: This is an updated version of an article that was originally published over at Sojourners.

We’re well past the half-way mark into Donald Trump’s presidency. Progressives have seen, and continue to see, their worst fears coming to life. Xenophobic policies have brought immigration to a trickle, scapegoated Latin American refugees, and turned the border wall into a fascist symbol of hate. Islamphobic wars continue, with an intensification of drone strikes (now with a brazen disregard for civilian casualties). We are on the brink of a whole new oil-war with Venezuela. Trump’s son-in-law is discussing bringing nuclear capabilities to Saudi Arabia. And the dismantling of environmental protections, social programs, and civil liberties continues.

These are grim days for the American experiment.

What we see now, in Trumpian neo-fascism is a continuation of America’s original sins. And the worst imperial impulses of the United States of America find their root in a form of Christianity that legitimizes militarism, economic exploitation, racism, xenophobia, and sexism.

Yet any blame we place on Trump, his administration, and their legislative accomplices must be cast wider. Trumpian neo-fascism is simply the latest fruit from a much older tree. As my representative Ilhan Omar recently stated:

“We can’t be only upset with Trump. … His policies are bad, but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies. They just were more polished than he was,” she said. “And that’s not what we should be looking for anymore. We don’t want anybody to get away with murder because they are polished. We want to recognize the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile.”

It isn’t enough to challenge conservative Christianity and the ways it has nurtured a toxic form of Christo-fascism; we need to challenge progressive Christianity, as well.

Progressive Christians, out of a sense of politeness, unity, and respectability, have failed to challenge directly those churches that provide the theological justification that gave us Trump. We have learned only half the message of Dr. King:

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

Many of us have heeded King’s words to the point that we are willing to make strongly worded statements on social media. Some will raise our angry voices in the streets. Our clergy will don their collars and stoles to attend justice rallies. A handful will join movements like Black Lives Matter to shut down the interstate. Fewer still will make the trek to Standing Rock.

But our myths weren’t born on the streets. Our most pernicious and toxic habits and beliefs were forged in the pulpits of thousands of congregations. As my dear friend, Pastor Jin Kim of Church of All Nations, says: “The church provides the foot soldiers for the American Empire.”

Nevertheless, while a growing number are willing to protest in the political arena, a precious few are willing to do so in the church. We have made unity an idol. In the Body of Christ, we prefer “a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.”

Let us take an ax to the root. Our nation’s Christian roots aren’t incidental to our imperialism; they are central.

The engine of Western imperialism is the quasi-Christian set of national myths that teach us that we, uniquely, embody the good life and should spread that life to the rest of the world. This Christian supremacy has been the justification for the deepest of our national sins.

White supremacy is the child of Christian supremacy, which elevates civilized Europeans over the rest of humanity, and turns creation into something exploitable.

If we want to confound and disrupt the narratives of oppression, we need to raise our angry voices in the pews as well as the streets.

I don’t mean that figuratively. I’m not advocating that we send challenging statements to our denomination’s national assemblies. I’m not suggesting that we start or join a justice committee in our church. I’m not even suggesting that we withhold tithes until our churches demonstrate a willingness to take the radical message of Jesus seriously (though that last one would be a great start).

I literally mean we should disrupt our churches. Just as Black Lives Matter employed a politics of disruption to raise the national alarm about racist policing. Just as the water protectors at Standing Rock have created a human barrier against pipeline construction. So too, should we disrupt and confound any and every congregation that fuels militarism, economic exploitation, sexism, racism, Islamophobia, or transphobia.

While such an approach is uncomfortable and risky, it is hardly novel. We worship a man who marched into the Temple during its most busy week, disrupted its market place, and proceeded to occupy it for a week while telling stories that overtly undermined the authority of the priests and scribes and exposes their complicity with Rome.

Jesus was so offensive that “the chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people kept looking for a way to kill him.” Jesus, like all the prophets before him, disrupted the injustices of their day by going to the center of myth making. They went to the Temple, the palaces, and the places of sacred meaning. And with bold words and deeds, they disrupted.

And it was, I believe, effective. Conventional wisdom tells us that interstate shut downs or Temple disruptions only “hurt the message.” But Paul Engler, director for the Center for Working Poor in Los Angeles, suggests that divisive tactics like those employed by Black Lives Matter and other groups force people to form an opinion about issues even if they disapproved of the tactics being used. He and his brother Mark write, in their book This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century:

“Time and again, patterns of polarization appear in democratic movements in the United States and abroad. Looking back from the safe removal of history, it can be easy to imagine that landmark social and political causes of the past–whether they involved ending slavery, securing the franchise for women, or establishing standards of workplace safety–were popular and widely celebrated. But the truth is that, in their time, these issues generated tremendous controversy. In promoting them, activists had to make the difficult decision to invite division and acrimony before they achieved their most impressive results.”

This is an Uprising, page 208

We need to do likewise — even if it offends our sensibilities and challenges our desires for unity. It isn’t enough to simply offer an alternative Christianity; we must disrupt the way a distorted gospel fuels imperialism.

It is time that we don the prophetic mantle within our churches and engage tactics of disruption so that Christians no longer feel comfortable going about business as usual. So that the vast and moderate middle is forced to contend with the issues and no longer remain complicit with the ways that Christianity has been used to justify oppression.